PERC 2009 Abstract Detail Page

We present findings from the University of Colorado's Partnership for Informal Science Education in the Community (PISEC) [1,2,3]. This model of university-community partnerships brings together primary school students with university educators in Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) sponsored after school programs. The elementary students worked through flexible inquiry based circuit activities based on the Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum [4] with physics graduate and undergraduate students learning about education in the community. We document the interactions that these informal science education (ISE) environments support and present findings on conceptual learning gain and attitude shifts of the children who participated.